Oct 16 Thanks, Obama! US Job Security Highest on Record

No, really. Thanks, Mr. President. This won't be featured on cable news, but Americans' job security has never been higher, according a report in the Wall Street Journal. The odds of getting laid off has plummeted to an all-time low, thanks to the Obama recovery.

This morning the Department of Labor reported that initial weekly jobless claims fell to 264,000. That’s the smallest number of people filing a jobless claim since April 2000.

But thanks to population growth, the U.S. labor force is larger now than it was 14 years ago. So adjusted for the number of workers who are covered by unemployment insurance, jobless claims are now the lowest on record. Put another way: In data going back to at least the early 1970s, the odds of getting laid off and filing jobless claims have never been lower.

As the report points out, regardless of the numbers pointing to high job security, the devastation of the Great Bush Recession is still taking its toll in terms of worker fears and unemployment.

Still, this is an astonishing accomplishment just six years from the second greatest economic catastrophe in American history. This is as good a time as any to review certain facts of the Obama recovery:

The unemployment rate has fallen from a high of 10% during the downturn to 5.9% last month.

The federal deficit has fallen at the fastest rate since the period following World War II, falling from 9.8% of GDP in FY 2009 (Bush's last budget) to 2.8% in FY 2014.

10.3 million new private sector jobs since the beginning of the recovery, and the longest stretch of private sector job creation on record.

This is to say nothing of the booming US manufacturing sector after it declined through presidencies Republican and Democratic, or the insurmountable scorched earth opposition this president has had to battle through to accomplish all this for the American people.

Let's say thank you to President Obama. But let's do better. Let's express our gratitude at the ballot box.